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BIG PHYSICS, BIG QUESTIONS –

How to be happy: Putting well-being on the agenda

(Image: Ryan Pyle/Corbis)

NEXT week, 200,000 questionnaires will be going out to homes across the UK from the Office for National Statistics. They will include four simple questions: Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays? Overall, how happy did you feel yesterday? Overall, how anxious did you feel yesterday? Overall, to what extent do you feel the things you do in your life are worthwhile?

This will be a world first. Other nations collect some happiness data - especially the US through its Gallup polls - and France has plans to collect similar information. But the UK is taking nationwide studies to a new level, "like going from a land-based telescope to Hubble", according to David Halpern, director of the Behavioural Insight Team within the Cabinet Office. So what does the government hope to make of the answers?